“The point is that when everyone is looking in one direction, sometimes industry change and profits can come from where everyone is telling you not to look.”

-Mark Cuban from his post “The Irony of the Video Business”

For most of us, the secondary intention of our work, besides doing it well, is for recognition of our efforts. It doesn’t matter if we spend our time in practicing business, art, education, stand-up comedy, entertaining, etc, it comes down to how you use your marketing chops, whatever they are. So how do you do this? Start by adopting one of my mottoes of “Do The Opposite” and you should have a pretty good starting point of how to consider your options.

It is by using this phrase as a starting point for evaluating the market that you can find the holes in the spread of others fighting for the same thing as you. I am not saying that you should always flat-out do the opposite and try to stick out. It is not a course of action for all decisions… but it is definitely the perfect way to discover what your ‘competitors’ are doing and how to sidestep their efforts and stand out. This is where market disruption comes to play and where truly exceptional people stand out.

FYI: I use very business-oriented terms for this, because that is how my mind initially works. I hope that artists and musicians and comedians (all of which I am), as well as others, also run with this strategy. There is much ground to be gained by quick, simple evaluation and critique of what your peers are doing and how you can steal their thunder. They are all worried that you will finally figure it out, so give them something truly be afraid of.